The Warrior Boy
by Ultra-Geek
Summary: The Highwayman with Avatar characters. I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.


This, for the record, is to the SONG 'The Highwayman'. Not the POEM. It's my fifteenth story! I adore the Highwayman, and this was the outcome!

I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Highwayman.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees  
The moon was a ghostly war-ship charging forth on raging seas  
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor  
And a warrior boy came riding, riding, riding,  
A warrior boy came riding, up to the Bei Fong's door.

He'd his hair pulled back from his forehead, a dark cloak blocked his face,  
A shirt of bluest blue, and breeches of warm pole-skin;  
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were torn with wear!  
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,  
His knife hilts a-twinkle,  
His boomerang blade a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the Bei Fong's yard,  
And he tapped with his spear on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;  
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there  
But the Bei Fong's green-eyed daughter,  
Toph, the Bei Fong's daughter,  
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bending sweetheart, I'm off to help Aang tonight,  
But I shall be back with a vict'ry song before the morning light;  
Yet if they press us sharply, and harry us through the day,  
Then I'll be here by the moonlight, listen for me by the moonlight,  
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand  
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand  
As the black cascade of her dark hair came tumbling over his face;  
And he kissed its locks in the moonlight,  
(Oh, sweet locks in the moonlight!)  
He tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,  
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,  
When the road was a nomad's ribbon, dancing through the purple moor,  
Fire Nation troops came marching, marching, marching  
Lord Ozai's men came marching, up to the Bei Fong's door.

They said no word to Sir Bei Fong, they drank his ale instead,  
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;  
Two of them knelt at the casement, with fire in their hearts,  
There was death at every window, hell at one dark window;  
For they could see, through the casement,  
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;  
They had bound a saber beside her, with the blade beneath her breast!  
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.  
She heard the dead boy say  
"I'll be here by the moonlight, watch for me by the moonlight  
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!  
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!  
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!  
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, caught, on the stroke of midnight,  
The tip of one finger touched it! A small stone now was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse's hoofs rang clear  
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?  
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,  
The warrior boy came riding, riding, riding!  
The soldiers looked to their priming!  
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!  
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!  
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, She drew one last deep breath,  
Then her finger moved in the moonlight, her stone shot forth in the moonlight,  
Fire flew straight in the moonlight, and she warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the east; he did not know she stood  
bowed, with her head o'er the saber, drenched with her own red blood!  
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear  
How Toph, the Bei Fong's daughter, the Bei Fong's blinded daughter,  
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

And back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky  
With the white road smoking behind him and his boomerang brandished high!  
Blood-red was the cloak in the golden noon; wine-red was his bluest shirt,  
when they shot him down on the roadway, down like a dog on the roadway,  
And he lay in his blood on the roadway, with her face fresh in his mind.

Still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,  
When the moon is a ghostly war ship, charging forth on raging seas,  
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,  
A warrior boy comes riding, riding, riding,  
A warrior boy comes riding, up to the Bei Fong's door.


End file.
